"When fascism comes to America, it will be wrapped in the flag and carrying the cross."
-- Sinclair Lewis

Thursday, April 25, 2019

If Bernie Sanders Wins the Most Pledged Delegates, On Whom Should the Burden of "Unity" Fall?

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Would these people accept an Establishment bargain with a "unity candidate"?

by Thomas Neuburger

“We are going to win this primary, but if we don’t, he will do whatever it takes to defeat Donald Trump. If the nominee is Bernie Sanders, will those Democratic insiders fully support a Bernie Sanders campaign? Will they put aside their personal animus?”
—Ari Rabin-Havt, Bernie Sanders' chief of staff

We're starting to see more and more questions from Democratic insiders about whether Bernie Sanders can "unify the party" if he wins the nomination. For example, in this piece from Ruby Cramer at BuzzFeed on the recent fight that broke out between ThinkProgress and CAP on one side and the Sanders campaign on the other, two quotes stand out (emphasis added):

"Sanders' brand is fighting the establishment. It's who he is. It's core to his appeal. But the landscape is different this time," said John Neffinger, a longtime progressive operative. "Voters have more choices, which argues for leaning into that strength, but they also want someone who can unite the party in the end."

and:

Ahead of his February campaign launch, a number of senior advisers, including [former Sanders adviser Mark] Longabaugh, whose consulting firm has since split with the campaign, warned that Sanders, a longtime independent who made a point of filing his 2024 Senate reelection paperwork as a third-party candidate on the same day he registered as a candidate in the 2020 Democratic primary, would need to work to unite the party behind him.

Which raises the question, if Bernie Sanders wins the 2020 Democratic nomination, on whom does the burden of "unity" primarily fall — Party operatives and insiders, or Bernie Sanders?

To ask that differently, if Democratic Party voters choose Sanders as their presidential candidate, do Democratic Party insiders have any right to resist or hobble his campaign in the general election?

Remember, that was what Sanders was tasked with in 2016 when he lost the nomination to Hillary Clinton. His job was to work as hard as he could to support her election, a job which he performed energetically and without reservation. Hillary Clinton and Party insiders didn't consider it their job to "unite" with Sanders and his program — the burden fell entirely to him to support her policy agenda.

Will It Work That Way in 2020?

Will expectations be different now that Sanders is leading? For a clue, let's turn to the very next paragraph of the BuzzFeed article:

Sanders advisers now describe a scenario where the senator captures the nomination with less than a plurality of support from Democrats — setting up the possibility of a multiple rounds at the national convention next summer.

"Multiple rounds" means only one thing — the superdelegates will have the upper hand, and if they do, they will know it going into the convention. If Sanders has a mere plurality, "Stop Sanders" insiders appear to have a plan (emphasis added):

Should no bargain be struck by the time of the first roll call vote at the 2020 convention in Milwaukee — such as a unity ticket between a pair of the leading delegate-winners — the nomination battle would move to a second ballot. And under the new rules crafted after the 2016 race, that is when the party insiders and elected officials known as superdelegates would be able to cast a binding vote.

Note that this "bargain" would be offered before the first roll call vote.

If Sanders enters the convention with a plurality of pledged delegates, but no majority, will he be told that the price for superdelegate support is to accept an establishment- and superPAC-supported candidate as his running mate, someone well positioned to sabotage his agenda should he leave or be forced out of office?

Or worse, would he be asked to be the running mate to a less-progressive candidate?

Will he be publicly vilified as "anti-unity" ahead of the general election if he fails to accept their "offer"? And if so, will Party insiders blame him for their own lack of energetic and whole-hearted support?

I guess only time will tell, but the signs aren't good at this point.

If Sanders enters the convention as the candidate with the most first-round votes, majority or not, I think the burden of "unity" falls squarely on the shoulders of the Party. More importantly, I think the voters will think that as well — something Party insiders should keep in mind as they contemplate their Stop Sanders options.

4 Comments:

I have not made a decision on who I will support. But I'd like to point out how well Bernie made fools of the FOX hosts during his town hall show by getting the audience to roar its approval of his points.

I don't see democraps managing to do that with Party partisans, else there wouldn't be twenty people running for the nomination. Most of them are barely registering on the polls.

But the hacks ruining the Party would rather have Trump and defeat for another four years than to take control and begin the process of repairing the damage Trump and the Republicans have done to this nation.

This is precisely the test the Democratic party of 1972 failed and failed miserably with the conservadems enthusiastically undercutting their party's nominee and even working for the Republican. And yet, somehow, the lesson they took from that for over 40 years since has been they have to try to nominate the most conservative person possible. Not that they should unite behind their standard-bearer and try to win.

Here you must, as usual, differentiate between the PARTY and the voters.

And, as has been the case since the 1980 evisceration by Reagan, the PARTY (meaning corporate and billionaire MONEY!) will never unify with anyone that does not represent at least some of their own. period.As has been the case since then, as noted above and was on clear display in 2016, the PARTY will nominate the most corrupt fascist they can and still be able to call their nom process 'democratic-ish'.

They did learn a lesson from the cluster fuck of the '68 convention and their utter repudiation of voters then. It was the CMIC and the old guard then who could not abide an anti-war candidate and needed to goon their own process so that HHH, their most viable-ish hawk, could be coronated. The anti-war voters, mostly students and young activists, reacted with protests which the old-guard Daly-led police in Chicago turned into a police riot, which was covered by the press and spun as violence by the students.

That was the media's most appalling display of fealty to the money up until 1980 when Reagan turned them all loose to serve money and only money.

Predictably, voters did not take to the PARTY'S CMIC candidate HHH which created a vacuum that put fucking Nixon into the white house. In a campaign of lies similar in nature to trump's, Nixon ran as the "anti-viet-nam-war" candidate with the "secret plan" to end it. I don't know how many idiots believed Nixon in '68, but enough did (plus enough D voters being disgusted enough to stay home) to elevate Nixon, who was probably as hated by most people as was trump before he won.

Nixon at least governed like a normal-ish president, in spite of his paranoia. He gave us the EPA, for one.

So... has the PARTY forgotten the lesson of '68? Has the money that owns the PARTY forgotten... or do they care? Will the voters blithely accept the ratfucking of the PARTY again... still?

When, not if, Bernie gets ratfucked again and biden is coronated, it won't matter whether Bernie repudiates himself again and still. I doubt VOTERS will accept a career corrupt fascist and racist like biden just because Bernie urges them to.

That means trump wins again, maybe losing the vote count by several million but taking 360 or more electors. The solid Nazi states won't change. And the swingy states can go for trump, as we saw in '16, by the democrap PARTY disgusting only a few thousand voters per state.

There won't be any reconciliation. There will only be greater balkanization of voters, states, districts and the two parties.

Unless Bernie and Elizabeth go it alone or as Greens. There seems to be a fair-sized nascent lefty leaning electorate that would be thrilled to tell the democrap PARTY to go fuck itself and die. But they, and 10s of millions of dormant non-voters, have nowhere to go and nothing to support unless there becomes someone and something... NOT the democrap party.